documents, none of which contained the slightest reference to himself. He drew a breath, and turned mechanically to take his father’s will from Clifford, saying as he did so: “Four thousand only? Well thank God for that! I thought it would be more.”
“Well, so it was up till about five years ago,” said Clifford confidentially. “This is the second of your father’s wills.” He coughed, and began to play with one of the pencils on his desk. “Nothing to do with me, of course, Ray old man, but I’m afraid the settlements, even as they now stand, are going to be a bit of a charge on the estate.”
“The devil of a charge!” Raymond replied.
Clifford made a sympathetic noise in his throat. “I thought Uncle had been living a bit above his means,” he said, tactfully understating the case.
“Playing ducks and drakes with his means would be nearer the mark. God knows what sort of a mess I’m going to find!”
Clifford shook his head. “Of course, times are very bad. The estate…”
“The estate brings in about four thousand a year. It’s not that. I know very well he’s been selling out his invested capital for years. That’s where the pinch is going to come. What’s that you’ve got hold of?”
“Faith’s marriage settlement.”
Raymond took it out of his hand, and ran his eye down its provisions. He gave one of his short laughs. “Quite a nice little jointure! A thousand a year, most of which will be squandered on Clay!” He got up, tossing the settlement deed back into the tin box. “All right: it seems fairly simple. You’d better bring the will up to Trevellin, and read it to the family. Usually done after the funeral, isn’t it? Well, God knows when that’ll be, but if I know anything about Ingram and Eugene and Aubrey, there’ll be no peace until they know how much they’re going to get and precious little when they do know!”
Clifford accompanied him out to his car, expressing in an embarrassed tone the conventional wish that there were something he could do to assist the Penhallows in their affliction. As he added the conviction that Rosamund would be as anxious as he was himself to bring aid and comfort to the family, the wish sounded more than usually insincere, and drew nothing more than a grunt from Raymond. Clifford then said that if Raymond did not think that his presence in the house would be a nuisance he felt that he ought to motor out to Trevellin to see his mother. Raymond replied that he might do as he pleased, got into his battered runabout and drove off towards Bodmin.
By the time he returned to Trevellin, the morning was considerably advanced, and not only the Vicar and Penhallow’s old friend, John Probus, had called to condole, but the house was invaded by Detective Inspector Logan, supported by Sergeant Plymstock, at present engaged in pursuing investigations which however quietly proceeded with, had had the effect of casting at least half the household into a flutter.
The Inspector, who was a sensible-looking man of about forty-five, knew the Penhallows well by reputation but he had not previously come into contact with them nor had he until this morning penetrated into what must, he privately considered, be surely the most extraordinary house in the county. He had an impression of innumerable rooms of all shapes and sizes all crammed with furniture, many leading one out of the other; of local stone corridors; of irrelevant staircases; of rambling cellars; of huge fireplaces; and of odd doors which gave unexpectedly on to hitherto unsuspected halls and passages. He had not uttered a word on first being led to Penhallow’s bedroom, but he admitted to his dazed Sergeant, later, that he really did think he’d got by mistake into a sort of Aladdin’s cave.
Ingram, who, in Raymond’s absence, had constituted himself as head of the establishment, took him there, and was struck at once with a sense of loss. The great bed stood empty, the blazing quilt stretched neatly across it; the mountain of ash had been cleared out of the hearth; and the litter of miscellaneous objects on the refectory table had been removed. The silence of the room brought home his father’s death to Ingram as nothing else had done, yet Penhallow’s spirit seemed to hang over it, so that Ingram almost expected to hear his loud, jovial voice hail him. He was rather shaken, and said: “By Jove! The poor old Guv’nor! Brings it home to one!”
From Ingram, the Inspector learned the names and relationships of those living in the house.. He was obliged to write these down, and to refer to them frequently during the course of his inquiries. Sergeant Plymstock said crankly that it would be a month of Sundays before he got any of them sorted out. He had always understood Penhallow to have been a proper tyrant, but by the time his superior had elicited from Ingram various admissions which showed the extent and nature of Penhallow’s despotism he began to feel that his previous impressions of the deceased had been milk-and-water bowdlerising of the truth.
It had not taken Logan long to discover the almost certain means by which Penhallow’s death had been brought about. In response to his preliminary inquiries, Faith had said: “But I’m the only person in the house who takes sleeping-draughts. Unless you do, Eugene? Only it isn’t exactly a sleeping-draught. I’ve taken it for years. Dr Lilton prescribed it for me. It’s veronal. But I always keep it in my own room!”
“Is it kept under lock and key, madam?” Logan asked her.
She fixed her strained, startled eyes on his face. “No. No, not under lock and key. But no one has ever —”
“Don’t be an ass, Faith!” Charmian interrupted. “Obviously someone has! Where is the stuff?”
“It’s always kept on the shelf, with my other medicines and things. But there’s only a very little left in the one bottle, and I haven’t opened the new one yet! I really don’t think...”
“May I see it, madam?”
“Yes, of course! Shall I fetch it, or would you like to see for yourself where it is?”
“If you please,” said Logan.
She led the way up the main staircase to her room at the head of it. “There it is, Inspector. Those two bottles at the end of the shelf. You’ll see that the new one hasn’t been opened even. I’m sure... ”
The Inspector, who had picked one of the bottles up with his handkerchief, said: “This is empty, madam.”
“Empty? Oh, you must have got the old one! But I quite thought there was a little left in the bottle!”
He picked up the other bottle, and tilted it. “In this one, madam, there is.”
She put a hand to her head, faltering: “But I never even opened it! You must be mistaken! Oh, no, of course I know you can’t be, but — but I don’t understand! Do you mean he was poisoned with my drops? Oh, no, no. it’s too awful! I won’t believe it!”
He wrapped the bottle up in his handkerchief. “You said, I think, that you have been in the habit for some years of taking veronal? Was anyone in the household aware of this?”
She sank down into a chair. She looked very white, and a little dazed. “Oh, yes! Everyone knew I had to take drops to help me to sleep.”
“Does the bottle always stand on that shelf?'
“Yes — at least, I do sometimes have it on the table by my bed, but generally — Oh, I ought to have kept it locked away, only I never thought — Besides, who could possibly… ? And they wouldn’t have put it back in my room! You don’t think I did it? Inspector, you can’t think I would do such a thing?”
“It’s too early for me to think anything, madam. On the face of it, it seems that anyone in the house could have had access to the bottle at any time.”
“Yes, but — Oh, does it mean that I’m actually responsible? For leaving the bottle about? But I never dreamed…it didn’t even occur to me that anyone would-’
“No, madam, I’m sure. Was anyone aware, to your knowledge, that you had recently had this prescription made up again?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think — that is, my maid knew, and of course the housemaids must have seen it, when they dusted the room.”
“How long have you had the second bottle in your possession, madam?”
She pressed her hand to her brow again. “Let me think! Everything’s such a nightmare that I find it hard to — Was it yesterday? No, I think it must have been the day before. My maid was going into Liskeard, and I asked her to get the prescription made up again. Yes, I’m nearly sure that was when it was.”
The Inspector referred to his notes. “That would be Loveday Trewithian?”
“Yes. She is our butler’s niece. But she couldn’t have had anything to do with it, Inspector!”
He raised his eyes from his notebook. “She is engaged to be married to Mr Bartholomew Penhallow, I believe, madam?”
